Windows XP forum: Wiping out Windows XP

Hi Jimmy,
I am not sure what you mean. I have a couple of bad NT drives. I took one of them and put it in the xp machine just to see if it gave me the same problem that it gave me when it was in the NT machine. I think I was trying to eliminate other problems like motherboard in the NT machine. Anyway, it did give me the same problem so I figure I just need to create an NT hard drive. Then my next problem will be all my scan and print codes that run my machine but that is a whole other story. Please let me know what you think I should do since I don't really understand your question. Thanks for replying.
David

was, if you connect the old XP drive into the NT system computer then boot up from the NT Installer disk as if to begin the installation, what happens?

I am guessing that the installer will offer you the option of deleting the existing partition that XP is on, then continuing with the install.

In fact in the link below are the steps to install NT and the 'delete partition' comes later;

http://www.windowsreinstall.com/install/textonly/nt40diskinstall.htm

Mark

As I understood it, you had NT4 and XP installed on different drives of the same system. The NT4 drive died, so you wanted to install NT4 onto the XP drive. So I was wondering what problems you were having when going through the normal routine of installing NT4, which should have an option to format the drive along the way.

If you're trying to move drives around between computers that is going to just make your list of problems grow unless you reinstall the OS. However, if you think you've pinned the problem down to being just the HDD having gone bad, why not just buy a new HDD, slap it in the NT4 box, reload the OS, service packs, software, etc, and be on your merry way? There seems to be some piece of the puzzle that you're not sharing with the group, or you're overthinking this to a significant degree.

Hey guys. Mark, you are saying to take the working XP drive, put it in the NT machine with the NT cd and try it that way? Jimmy, I just thought I could save some money by using a drive that I already have. But to clarify, the XP drive was in a computer that I no longer use and the NT drive was in a computer that I need to get up and running so yes, they are in different machines.
David

No problem then. Slap the drive from the XP system into the NT4 box, format it during the install process, and Bob's your uncle... Just not the Bob who posted below... As far as I know at least.

There's no need to make this any more complicated than it need be. Worst case scenario, pop the drive into an external enclosure, format it on some other system, then slap it into the NT4 box and reinstall the OS.

Ok guys. I am going to try to put the XP drive in the NT machine and format it. Can I also do the opposite like put the XP drive back in the machine it came from along with the NT cd and do it that way. The only reason I ask is I am not sure if the cd drive in the NT machine works. Sorry I am such a pest with this but I have never done anything like this before.
David

Probably, but you'd probably be better off by just swiping the optical drive off the XP box and putting it into the NT4 box. I assume we're dealing with IDE devices here, so there shouldn't be any problems. If you ever want to resurrect the XP box you can always put the drive back. If you can swap out a HDD, you can swap out an ODD.

I'm going to guess here that you wanted some preview of the future. That is, what will happen. Sorry but given such old machines I am continually replacing old CDROM drives and more to get the machines to boot from the NT 4.0 CD. I no long bother using the diskettes since those are even more finicky as of last count it was 4 to 6 floppies!

Here's a picture of what might happen -> http://www.blackviper.com/Articles/OS/Install2kPro/install2kpro1.htm

I could not find such on Windows NT 4.0 but it was pretty similar.
Bob

Ok, check this out. Here is what has happened so far. I took the crashed NT HDD, it's the one that gave me the blue screen with all the letters and numbers on it, and put it in the XP machine. I then took a Windows NT cd and put that in and told the machine to boot from the cd. It asked me a whole bunch of questions so I pretty much kept hitting enter. I tried R for repair, I tried a bunch of other stuff. It kept telling me after a while to put in the Windows NT cd and hit enter but it wouldn't do anything when I hit enter. It also kept telling me that some files were missing. Just so happens I have those files on brand new floppies. I am going to try to boot from the floppies tomorrow and see if it puts those files on the HDD. The good news so far is that this drive that used to blue screen is now booting but with errors. I will keep you posted.
Thanks for everybody's help.
David

I helped our IT seasoning process by roasting him on that issue. I know he was new but it took about ten trips to google before he figured out he could look for the answer first. It was fun for the rest of the office as they would watch me type in the error and try the first hit.

I think that's a good cartoon about it too! Here it is.


http://xkcd.com/627/

Look at the bottom right box.
Bob

Hey Bob,
Yup, I know exactly what you mean. I am Mr. Google. Just ask my wife and the guys I work with. I Google everything. I research everything through google. I didn't have time to even look at the errors because it was time to leave. I will continue on tomorrow and let you know what happens.
Thanks,
David